My father's ledger taught me why the fuel price argument never ends

My father was a grain merchant for 35 years. He kept one leather book for every year, and he wrote everything inside it. Every bag of maize, every buyer, every debt. If a man owed him ₦200 he wrote it down. If he owed a man ₦200 he wrote it down too.

I was maybe 12 when I asked him why he stress himself with the book. He said, Amina, if you don't write it, you will argue forever. He said the reason people fight about money in this country is not the money. It is that nobody wrote anything down.

I am thinking about that book today because of this fuel price talk everywhere. Everybody is shouting, nobody is showing the numbers. My father would have opened his ledger and said show me the cost, show me what you sell it for, show me where the difference is going. That is all. Just show the book. Nobody wants to show the book.